Saugus Town Meeting 2024

Members will consider an article to use $500,000 from the Supplemental Student Support Reserve Fund for afterschool programs to help students hurt by COVID-19

By Mark E. Vogler

School officials made a rare second pre-Town Meeting appearance before the Finance Committee Wednesday night – this time to seek the backing of a half-million-dollar afterschool program which won’t require increasing the proposed budget for Saugus Public Schools.

“We want to make kids feel positive about school,” Saugus Public Schools Superintendent Michael Hashem said in briefing the Finance Committee about the goals behind Article 10 – a request to authorize funding from the Supplemental Student Support Reserve Fund.

Hashem said he hopes to see a variety of afterschool programs initiated on all levels of Saugus Public Schools “open up the buildings like they were envisaged before COVID … like a youth center…”

Town Manager Scott C. Crabtree introduced the article to create the reserve fund during a Special Town Meeting in the fall of 2022 and convinced Town Meeting members to pass it. The fund was designed to aid the School Department in reaching students whose education was adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Finance Committee members voted unanimously to recommend passage of Article 10, one of six financial articles that are expected to be considered by Town Meeting members when they convene for Session 2 of the Annual Town Meeting on Monday (May 13) at 7:30 p.m. in the second floor auditorium at Town Hall.

Town Moderator Steve Doherty said he expects that the six articles, including Article 10 – which received a favorable review from the Finance Committee at Wednesday night’s review session – would be the focus of Monday night’s session. Time permitting, members could also take up some of the articles on the warrant that don’t involve money and therefore don’t require review by the Finance Committee, according to Doherty. He said Town Meeting probably wouldn’t be able to review the zoning articles on the warrant until June because the Planning Board needs time to review them.

Money “to touch the kids”

School Committee Chair Vincent Serino, who accompanied Hashem to the meeting, told the Finance Committee “We need to look at what we’re trying to build here.”

“I think it’s to get the kids engaged that really maybe aren’t engaged,” he said.

“I think the goal for everybody is a top-rated school system,” Town Manager Crabtree said in his advocacy for Article 10.

“The money we have in the reserve fund is specifically to work on – with the pandemic – and try to put money toward kids and children … that have fallen behind or lost vocabulary. That money is specifically to touch the kids,” he said.

Money used from the fund over a two-to-four-year span would “put programs in that are going to bring kids up to par.” “This money is put aside to bring the kids back up so we can improve our scores and achievement in each class,” he said.

“Moving forward, long term,” Crabtree stressed, the School Department would have to figure out how to come up with how to fund the programs after the reserve fund is no longer available.

The fund, according to previous reports, has about $3 million that has never been used since its inception. This money would allow for a variety of educational programs in the school district that are not currently covered by the School Department’s operating budget. In order for the Saugus Public Schools to access these funds, the Superintendent and School Committee must submit a detailed plan to the Saugus Finance Committee, who will determine that such plans are supplementing current educational programming and not supplanting it. Use of the funds requires Town Meeting approval.

A successful pilot project

Hashem told the Finance Committee that he’s optimistic about the potential for the afterschool programs that the school district has been developing in anticipation of Article 10’s passage. “We did it on a small [scale] and it was successful,” Hashem said, referring to a pilot project initiated at the Belmonte STEAM Academy by School Principal Maureen Lueke.

“I do credit Dr. Lueke. She asked if she could do something as a pilot [project] and it was extremely successful,” he said.

About 100 students at the Belmonte participated in the afterschool programs over a six-week period. The programs included assembling a newspaper, arts and crafts, the Girls on the Run program and Spanish.

“I envisage the program to be four days a week in each of the buildings,” Hashem said.

“A chunk of the funding would go to getting supplies for the robotics,” he said. Robotics has been a very popular activity at the Belmonte STEAM Academy and there seems to be great interest at the Middle School for a similar program, according to Hashem.

“I think a book club after school would be a huge win,” Hashem said.

The educational philosophy behind the various afterschool programs is to reinforce academic skills, according to Hashem. For instance, the proposal for offerings at the Belmonte STEAM Academy includes a book club, keyboarding skills, a school newspaper, a theatre and creativity performance group, a robotics club, arts and crafts, board games and puzzles and homework help. Middle School students could participate in a debate club or chess club. Students would be able to seek tutoring in English and Math in a less stressful environment. But, most importantly, students would have a wide variety of options to participate in activities that would keep them busy and essentially turn their school into a community center, Hashem stressed.

He said that students in grades 2 through 5 [Belmonte STEAM Academy] and grades 6 through 8 [Middle School] would be the ones most affected by the afterschool programs. Students in these grades are eager to find afterschool activities to engage in, because their options are currently limited, Hashem suggested.

“There’s a lot of kids who don’t play basketball and a lot of kids who don’t want drama,” he said.

The other articles at a glance

At Wednesday night’s meeting, the Finance Committee also gave favorable review to:

• Article 11: To see if the Town will vote to ratify, approve and confirm the vote adopted under Article 14 of the warrant of the May 3, 2021, Annual Town Meeting to authorize the borrowing of $2.9 million for funding of water main projects. Crabtree said there was “a defect in the posting,” which required a new vote.
• Article 12: To see if the Town will vote to authorize amounts to be expended from each of these revolving funds: Saugus Senior Center Programs and Activities, Saugus Senior Center Lunch Program, Water Cross Connection Program, Town of Saugus Compost Program and Youth and Recreation Programs and Activities.
• Article 14: To see if the Town will borrow money at zero percent interest from the MWRA Local Pipeline Assistance Program for designing and constructing improvements to water pipelines.
• Article 15: An appropriation of $350,000 from certified free cash for construction or reconstruction of roadways and sidewalks for several areas of town, but not limited to Jamaica Road, Lake Street, Pinehurst Street and Steven’s Place.
• Article 16: An appropriation of $150,000 in certified free cash for replacement of guard rails that have been determined to be a priority because they have been damaged by a vehicle or are old.